The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Centre's decision on One Rank, One Pension (OROP) for the defence forces and said there was no constitutional lapse in the manner in which it was being implemented.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud said in the principles governing pension and cut-off dates, There is no legal order that same pension should be given to pensioners of the same rank and that different benefits applicable to certain employees which will also affect the pension payable, They should not be equated with other employees.
"Applying " the principles of facts of the case", the bench, which also comprised Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, said: "We do not find any constitutional flaw in the OROP principle as defined by communication dated November 7, 2015..."
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The petitioners had challenged the letter dated November 7, 2015, contending that during implementation, the OROP principle for persons with the same length of service has been replaced with One Rank Multiple Pension.
He argued that the initial definition of OROP was changed and instead of automatic revision of pension rates, under which any future increase in pension rates is automatically passed on to previous pensioners, the revision would now be at periodic intervals. They argued that the deviation from the suo motu amendment was arbitrary and unconstitutional under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
Dismissing the argument, the court said that the definition of OROP is not arbitrary. The court said the definition of OROP applies equally to all pensioners irrespective of the date of retirement.
The judgment stated that the cut-off date is used only to determine the base pay for computation of pension. While for those retiring after 2014, the last drawn salary is used for calculating pension, those who retired before 2013, the average salary received in 2013 is used.
The court said the central government had taken a policy decision to increase the base salary for computation of pension as a similar application of last drawn salary for the purpose of computation of pension would cause loss to the pre-retired people.
"Of course, the central government had a number of policy options including taking minimum, maximum or average or average" but decided to adopt "average". "Such decisions come under the purview of policy options," the ruling party said, adding that those coming above the average were protected."
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The court noted that the communication of 2015 stated that in future, the pension will be re-fixed every five years and said that such an exercise is carried out after the expiry of five years, possibly due to the pendency of the present proceedings
Accordingly, the Court directed that a reassessment exercise shall be conducted at the end of five years from 1st July, 2019 and the arrears due to all eligible pensioners of the Armed Forces shall be calculated and paid within three months.